Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Ice Melts, Border Changes

    Borders based on natural features cannot last forever. Topography changes over time, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but invariably it happens. You may have seen a recent article that appeared in CNN, Melting glaciers in Alps forcing Italy and Switzerland to redraw their borders, that proves this point. It’s a fascinating account although the headline is…

  • Australia’s Shortest Internal Border

    What is the shortest border in Australia between any state or territory? Take a look at the map and see if you can figure it out. You won’t, but try anyway. Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales? If I were forced to guess quickly I’d probably say that a likely choice would be the…

  • Reconciliation

    I mentioned Brian Brown’s wonderful Vanishing South Georgia website previously as I explored leaf-vein patterns left behind by swamp drainage. Brian uses an interesting minimalist approach. It allows imagery to portray a wistful almost melancholy longing for a heritage slowly slipping away. He’s attempting to preserve it all visually before it decomposes back into the…

  • The Largest Smallest US County (a.k.a. it sucks getting old)

    Did yesterday’s dispatch seem a little shorter than usual? That’s because it was half the length I’d intended. To summarize briefly, each of the fifty United States has a smallest and a largest county. Yesterday I featured the largest of those smallest counties. Today I’ll take the opposite tack and present the smallest of the…

  • The Smallest Largest US County

    Every one of the fifty United States has a largest county[1]. Of that collection of counties, which is the smallest? Providence County – 436 Square Miles Providence County, Rhode Island is the smallest of those largest counties (map). That’s not too hard to believe, right? After all, Rhode Island is the smallest state and one…

  • Delaware Trifecta

    The Howder Clan found itself in northern Delaware this weekend. Indeed we traveled within the actual Twelve Mile Circle itself which inspired the name of this site. Of course I carved out some time for a few geo-oddities in this very rich concentration of such spots. Some of them I’ve discussed before and others I’ll…

  • Vale to Pensacola

    We’re in that wonderful time of the year when people are still getting used to Daylight Saving Time (that’s Saving without an “s” and no I don’t know why that bothers me). On Twelve Mile Circle that also means I’m getting an odd little bump in traffic that only happens when the time changes either…

  • Wallace Redux

    I’ve never been to Wallace, Idaho but I simply couldn’t get that place out of my head in spite of the controversy[1] surrounding its Center of the Universe claim. Seemingly, there is an odd story for each of its 960 residents. This one involves a stoplight. It all comes down to geography and in this…

  • Charlottesville Beer Trail

    EDITOR’S UPDATE: THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN IN 2009. THE LOCAL BEER SCENE HAS GROWN AND CHANGED CONSIDERABLY SINCE THAT TIME. Email traffic began to pick up late last summer on the DC-Beer Listserv. Another brewpub was about to open in the rolling hills west of Charlottesville. Of course, Breweries and brewpubs had been sprouting up…

  • Center of the Universe

    Colonel William R. Wallace built a pioneering homestead within a narrow valley in the northern Idaho panhandle. However, he probably didn’t realize he’d settled at the Center of the Universe. We can forgive that. In 1884 he couldn’t possibly have know he was sitting atop a billion ounces of silver either, or next to what…

Latest Comments

  2. Hi Mr. Howder — Just going from memory, I recall that your “rule” for counting a nation/state/county is “if I’m…

  5. Does anyone have actual music to the song – Tanaha ,Timpson. Bobo and Blair ?? It was recorded by Tex…